(no subject)
I'm back in the states after my time in Canada. It was a wonderful trip. Though my activities tend to blend together a bit in my head on trips, I can usually sort out what I did when by going through photos, since most times I have my camera in my hand.
But I'll start with Christmas Day. My love Danaeris had come over the night for the traditional outing for Christmas Even Chinese buffet. Sadly, my brother's ex, Lara, and her family weren't able to make it, and I didn't get to see Lara while she was in town. I miss talking with her. But dinner was great, with halfway decent food and wonderful company. Afterward, we went back home and played a game of something, I think, before bed.
Christmas morning we had an equally traditional home-made breakfast, courtesy of my dad. There was some exchange of presents, though only a few. Things that people had kind of picked up by chance through the year thinking they'd make good presents. And that's fine; the best part of the day was, again, the company. I love my family so very much, and I know I won't always be around to enjoy the occasions with them.
Danae and I drove north to Toronto, stopping on the way at the university in Lansing, one of the ones with a grad program she's applied to. It was all closed down of course, but we drove around the communications facility and looked at the campus. After procuring food from one of two restaurants that looked open in the whole town (Subway), we drove on again, finally arriving in Toronto in the evening.
In the next couple days, Danae showed me Hamilton Harbor and some of the industrial parts of Hamilton, where I photographed a freighter, some tugboats, and a nice industrial skyline that makes me happy. I also took a trip into Toronto in Danae's car, where I made me way to five or six buildings that are or used to be theatres. From an Indian restaurant and a church to a space being used as a school for circus arts, I saw some neat buildings and great parts of town. I was in Little India, Chinatown, and I think a Pakistani area too. Going further west, I stopped into what is my favorite repurposed theatre I've yet seen. A beautiful 1927 atmospheric lobby, along with the lobby and stagehouse, have been converted into a Chapters bookstore. It was far from a gut and rebuild job; the architectural details of the proscenium, the balcony, the lobby dome, the recessed shell lights all around the auditorium, and more were all preserved and incorporated in the current design with restoration of paint to the original colors. They even left a few lengths of rope hanging down from the flyloft over the stage for old-times' sake. The whole thing made me deeply happy. I'm sad to see a movie house close down as a movie house, but seeing the care that went into its rehabilitation was moving.
Oh, but before all the theatres, I checked out an abandoned power plant that Danae's father had told me about. Described in the Wikipedia article as "pharaohnic in scale", the building lived up to the descriptor, even though I could only see it from the outside. Though the gate was open, there was a guard in the booth just outside it. The scale of the plant was awe-inspiring, and I'm still pining for a chance to look around inside.
I got to meet Danae's brother and his girlfriend over dinner; they seemed like neat folks. She is a trained acupuncturist, though she's currently working at a Whole Foods in a management position. We had a good time talking about politics in Canada vs. the states as well as various other things. Later I met another friend of hers, Spice, who we had lunch with before exploring a wonderfully bizarre store called Honest Ed's. Ed's is nearly a literal maze, with it's multiple sub-levels, basement tunnel, skywalk, and two or three buildings of random bargain-closeout knick-knacks. I loved it a lot.
For the couple days before New Year's Eve, Danae took a room in a downtown hotel where she worked industriously on her program applications. I took the opportunity to spend four hours walking around downtown Seattle, going from the Royal Ontario Museum down the oddly named Avenue Road and through Queen's Park where I photographed the gorgeous Richardsonian Romanesque Toronto Parliament building. I continued down University Avenue to King and then west to the hotel on Bathurst. I was more sore than I expected; apparently I'm not used to quite so much walking anymore. But the whole day was quite lovely. We met another friend of Danae's that day for dinner. It made me happy to meet some of her friends from the area. It's too bad we didn't have time to invite him back to the hotel for board games and stuff, but my cabbit was still busy with her grad school apps.
I think it was the day after that that I drove out to Niagara Falls. I'd never been there before, and despite Danae's dad worrying that I'd be underwhelmed, there was a lot of whelming happening there. I could hear the noise before I saw the falls, and it was all amazing. Downstream of the tremendous horseshoe shaped section, wind picked up the mist churned up by the falling water and carried it huge distances through the air. It felt like a medium-heavy rain at times that only existed close to the gorge. The scale of the whole thing really floored me.
The city of Niagara Falls is pretty awesomely kitschy; very much like Wisconsin Dells. There was touristy stuff everywhere, and I ended up walking through a casino as I tried to find a way down to the falls themselves. Only one road seems to go through, and not knowing where it was, I did a bit of wandering. I ended up with a bunch of photos, many of them made by stashing my camera under my trenchcoat and waiting for flashes of time when water wasn't falling out of the sky on top of me to pull it out and snap photos. Everything around was covered in a layer of ice where precipitation was gathering on top of plants, railings, stones, and grass and congealing into a coating of crystal. Everything but the sidewalks near the edge, that is, which I was later told have steam pipes running under them to keep them walkable.
I'd really like to visit again in the summer. And again in the winter with a rain kit for my camera. And again at some point when I have money and can experience some of the super-touristy frippery like I have in the Dells. I think it would be pretty awesome to get the feel of the town a bit better and compare the two.
On the way back to Hamilton, I stopped along the Welland Canal, which is the shipping link between Lake Ontario on the north and Lake Eerie on the south. Six or seven locks take freighters up or down the Niagara Escarpment as part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. My hopes of seeing a freighter locking through did not come to pass, but the locks themselves were worthwhile and I took a few photos of them. The road tunnel that passed under the canal at one point was pretty impressive too. I'd really like to return there at a time when there's more ship traffic.
The last full day I was up there, I had planned to wander around Hamilton and photograph some more old theatres. But I learned that my grandfather was in the hospital again He'd been in on Christmas Day too, and was briefly home. But he started having more trouble and was readmitted. It sounds like he's at least stable for the moment, but things were looking pretty bad for a while, and I was rather stressed out about it. I ended up just driving out to some stairs I'd seen a picture of online where it looked like I could climb up and get a neat view of the city. I thought it would be relaxing to just get out and walk.
As it turned out, this was the longest set of stairs I think I've ever climbed, including the ones out of the copper mine I was in in the UP. Fortunately I wasn't carrying a 90 pound Akita, 'cause I wouldn't have made it up. If I understand the geography correctly, the stairs go all the way up the Niagara Escarpment, which Hamilton is built on. They follow the route of an inclined railroad that was abandoned and removed in the forties as 'upper Hamilton' became more accessable by car. But at one point, it had a large enough platform to carry wagons and horses up and down. I wish I could have seen that. The view from the top of the stairs was pretty amazing, and I took a bunch of pictures in the post-sunset dark that didn't come out well without a tripod. It's ok; the trip on it's own was worth it.
Finally there was a leave-taking from Danae's family and we left for the states again. We're talking about coming back in the Summer; we'll have to see if my schedule and finances allow. I definately want to return at some point. As always when I travel, there's so much more there that I want to see. Like the steam power museum in Hamilton that was closed when I wanted to see it, and the Toronto park that has bunches of huge architectural remnants from torn-down buildings. Can you get any more Stormdog than that? *wags*
But I'll start with Christmas Day. My love Danaeris had come over the night for the traditional outing for Christmas Even Chinese buffet. Sadly, my brother's ex, Lara, and her family weren't able to make it, and I didn't get to see Lara while she was in town. I miss talking with her. But dinner was great, with halfway decent food and wonderful company. Afterward, we went back home and played a game of something, I think, before bed.
Christmas morning we had an equally traditional home-made breakfast, courtesy of my dad. There was some exchange of presents, though only a few. Things that people had kind of picked up by chance through the year thinking they'd make good presents. And that's fine; the best part of the day was, again, the company. I love my family so very much, and I know I won't always be around to enjoy the occasions with them.
Danae and I drove north to Toronto, stopping on the way at the university in Lansing, one of the ones with a grad program she's applied to. It was all closed down of course, but we drove around the communications facility and looked at the campus. After procuring food from one of two restaurants that looked open in the whole town (Subway), we drove on again, finally arriving in Toronto in the evening.
In the next couple days, Danae showed me Hamilton Harbor and some of the industrial parts of Hamilton, where I photographed a freighter, some tugboats, and a nice industrial skyline that makes me happy. I also took a trip into Toronto in Danae's car, where I made me way to five or six buildings that are or used to be theatres. From an Indian restaurant and a church to a space being used as a school for circus arts, I saw some neat buildings and great parts of town. I was in Little India, Chinatown, and I think a Pakistani area too. Going further west, I stopped into what is my favorite repurposed theatre I've yet seen. A beautiful 1927 atmospheric lobby, along with the lobby and stagehouse, have been converted into a Chapters bookstore. It was far from a gut and rebuild job; the architectural details of the proscenium, the balcony, the lobby dome, the recessed shell lights all around the auditorium, and more were all preserved and incorporated in the current design with restoration of paint to the original colors. They even left a few lengths of rope hanging down from the flyloft over the stage for old-times' sake. The whole thing made me deeply happy. I'm sad to see a movie house close down as a movie house, but seeing the care that went into its rehabilitation was moving.
Oh, but before all the theatres, I checked out an abandoned power plant that Danae's father had told me about. Described in the Wikipedia article as "pharaohnic in scale", the building lived up to the descriptor, even though I could only see it from the outside. Though the gate was open, there was a guard in the booth just outside it. The scale of the plant was awe-inspiring, and I'm still pining for a chance to look around inside.
I got to meet Danae's brother and his girlfriend over dinner; they seemed like neat folks. She is a trained acupuncturist, though she's currently working at a Whole Foods in a management position. We had a good time talking about politics in Canada vs. the states as well as various other things. Later I met another friend of hers, Spice, who we had lunch with before exploring a wonderfully bizarre store called Honest Ed's. Ed's is nearly a literal maze, with it's multiple sub-levels, basement tunnel, skywalk, and two or three buildings of random bargain-closeout knick-knacks. I loved it a lot.
For the couple days before New Year's Eve, Danae took a room in a downtown hotel where she worked industriously on her program applications. I took the opportunity to spend four hours walking around downtown Seattle, going from the Royal Ontario Museum down the oddly named Avenue Road and through Queen's Park where I photographed the gorgeous Richardsonian Romanesque Toronto Parliament building. I continued down University Avenue to King and then west to the hotel on Bathurst. I was more sore than I expected; apparently I'm not used to quite so much walking anymore. But the whole day was quite lovely. We met another friend of Danae's that day for dinner. It made me happy to meet some of her friends from the area. It's too bad we didn't have time to invite him back to the hotel for board games and stuff, but my cabbit was still busy with her grad school apps.
I think it was the day after that that I drove out to Niagara Falls. I'd never been there before, and despite Danae's dad worrying that I'd be underwhelmed, there was a lot of whelming happening there. I could hear the noise before I saw the falls, and it was all amazing. Downstream of the tremendous horseshoe shaped section, wind picked up the mist churned up by the falling water and carried it huge distances through the air. It felt like a medium-heavy rain at times that only existed close to the gorge. The scale of the whole thing really floored me.
The city of Niagara Falls is pretty awesomely kitschy; very much like Wisconsin Dells. There was touristy stuff everywhere, and I ended up walking through a casino as I tried to find a way down to the falls themselves. Only one road seems to go through, and not knowing where it was, I did a bit of wandering. I ended up with a bunch of photos, many of them made by stashing my camera under my trenchcoat and waiting for flashes of time when water wasn't falling out of the sky on top of me to pull it out and snap photos. Everything around was covered in a layer of ice where precipitation was gathering on top of plants, railings, stones, and grass and congealing into a coating of crystal. Everything but the sidewalks near the edge, that is, which I was later told have steam pipes running under them to keep them walkable.
I'd really like to visit again in the summer. And again in the winter with a rain kit for my camera. And again at some point when I have money and can experience some of the super-touristy frippery like I have in the Dells. I think it would be pretty awesome to get the feel of the town a bit better and compare the two.
On the way back to Hamilton, I stopped along the Welland Canal, which is the shipping link between Lake Ontario on the north and Lake Eerie on the south. Six or seven locks take freighters up or down the Niagara Escarpment as part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. My hopes of seeing a freighter locking through did not come to pass, but the locks themselves were worthwhile and I took a few photos of them. The road tunnel that passed under the canal at one point was pretty impressive too. I'd really like to return there at a time when there's more ship traffic.
The last full day I was up there, I had planned to wander around Hamilton and photograph some more old theatres. But I learned that my grandfather was in the hospital again He'd been in on Christmas Day too, and was briefly home. But he started having more trouble and was readmitted. It sounds like he's at least stable for the moment, but things were looking pretty bad for a while, and I was rather stressed out about it. I ended up just driving out to some stairs I'd seen a picture of online where it looked like I could climb up and get a neat view of the city. I thought it would be relaxing to just get out and walk.
As it turned out, this was the longest set of stairs I think I've ever climbed, including the ones out of the copper mine I was in in the UP. Fortunately I wasn't carrying a 90 pound Akita, 'cause I wouldn't have made it up. If I understand the geography correctly, the stairs go all the way up the Niagara Escarpment, which Hamilton is built on. They follow the route of an inclined railroad that was abandoned and removed in the forties as 'upper Hamilton' became more accessable by car. But at one point, it had a large enough platform to carry wagons and horses up and down. I wish I could have seen that. The view from the top of the stairs was pretty amazing, and I took a bunch of pictures in the post-sunset dark that didn't come out well without a tripod. It's ok; the trip on it's own was worth it.
Finally there was a leave-taking from Danae's family and we left for the states again. We're talking about coming back in the Summer; we'll have to see if my schedule and finances allow. I definately want to return at some point. As always when I travel, there's so much more there that I want to see. Like the steam power museum in Hamilton that was closed when I wanted to see it, and the Toronto park that has bunches of huge architectural remnants from torn-down buildings. Can you get any more Stormdog than that? *wags*
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